“He’s not who you’re supposed to be with!” Chris’ voice cracked. His eyes burned into mine. “You know that!” His chest rose and fell like he’d run a marathon, his breathing jagged, as he dropped the final blow. “You weren’t even supposed to meet!”
“And who says that?” I snapped. “Maybewe’rethe ones who weren’t supposed to meet! Maybe us being together was such a huge mistake the Universe made sure we stayed apart!” He didn’t get to throw this at me. Not now. Not after everything. There was no point in stopping my life to spend the rest of my days mourning what we could’ve had. We would’ve met, sure, but we didn’t. This was the reality we were stuck with. And we both had to come to terms with it.
Chris’ hands clenched at his sides. A single tear escaped from his eye, trailing down his cheek. He didn’t wipe it away, and the sight of it sent a painful sting straight to my chest.
No. Don’t cry on me, Chris. You don’t get to cry on me.
He stared at the floor, his shoulders rising and falling as if trying to rein in whatever chaos was inside him. After a few moments, the tension in his jaw softened, and he slowly raised his head. Then, with a measured step, he closed the space until only inches separated us.
“You don’t really believe that,” he whispered, his deep blue eyes locking onto mine.
Damn it. There they were. Those ocean eyes that always made me feel like I was drowning. The moment our eyes met, my defenses shattered. Tears welled up, sliding down my cheeks before I could even attempt to stop them.
Shit, shit, shit. I wanted to take the tears back.
His voice cracked as he continued.
“If you were seeing the same life I was… You wouldn’t believe that.” His tone softened, each word a plea. “We were so…sohappy…” He paused as if the memory itself physically hurt him. “The kind of happiness that haunted me here because I knew that nothing—nothingin this reality—fame, money, women… nothing could ever come close to it.”
I stood frozen. His eyes bore into mine, pulling me into that space where nothing else existed. And he was right. God help me, but he was right. In the life I’d dreamed of, there was nothing like the security of being in his arms. He was the one I wanted to tell everything to, the first person I wanted to see every morning. His touch was the grounding I craved every moment of every day. It wasn’t the glossy, perfect love of a rom-com. It was imperfect and messy, but instead of being weighty or toxic, it felt… alive.
“I would lie awake at night,” he murmured, and I almost couldn’t hear it over the pounding of my heart, “thinking the devil himself had put the image of you in my head to mock me… to make everything in this reality colorless in comparison.” He moved closer, our bodies pressing together. His words cut me so deep because I’d thought the same thing. Like I was being punished for glimpsing that kind of joy and knowing it wasn’t mine. I inhaled sharply, my chest brushing against his.
Oh, fuck. Bad idea.
We weretooclose.
My gaze flicked to his lips, and for a split second, I almost leaned in.No.I needed to break this spell before I did something stupid.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“For what?” I managed to ask, though my throat felt like it was closing.
“For not being the Chris you dreamed of.”
Fuck. Stop it. He wasn’t the man I’d imagined, but he wasn’t the man I’d seen earlier tonight either. He wasn’t the drunk, messy, careless guy I’d witnessed at the bar. He was raw, vulnerable, and full of depth. And damn it, I knew this side of him existed because I’d seen it more than once.
“I’m not that Jules either,” I admitted softly. The person I’d dreamed of being—this fearless, radiant version of myself—I wasn’t her. My Nana said that was who Icould’vebeen if things had gone a little differently. But, shit, I couldn’t think of a single event that could’ve turned me into that woman.
Well, except maybe… if we’d met twelve years ago.
Goddamn it. If we’d met then, when I was all raw edges and chaos, maybe we would’ve wrecked each other just enough to rebuild together. Maybe twelve-years-ago me would’ve loved him so fiercely, and together, we’d have become the people we were supposed to be.
But we didn’t.
Chris leaned in closer, his breath warm against my skin. His hands brushed lightly against my cheek. His thumb hovered at my bottom lip, tracing it softly, and I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. His eyes followed the movement.
Don’t do this.
But my body didn’t listen. It never did around him. It wasn’t mine when he was near; it wasours,like it belonged to him as much as it belonged to me, as if we were still connected to that other reality where we’d spent twelve years building a life together.
“It’s too late now. Isn’t it?” His voice was barely a whisper, and his hand rested on my neck, thumb grazing the pulse point where my heart was pounding too fast. His eyes locked onto mine, begging for an answer, hoping that the answer wasn’t what we both knew it was.
I couldn’t say it. The word wouldn’t come. But my eyes said it all for me.
Yes. It was too late.
The versions of us that existed here, in this mess of a reality, seemed to only hurt each other instead of growing together.
